Has anyone else all but given up on getting meds from a local pharmacy? The following scenario happens to us all the time: I contact the pharmacy to refill a prescription, but I am out of refills and the pharmacy needs to contact the Dr. Then I wait a few days to a week. Today it happened with both my wife’s blood pressure med and my statin. Normally no big deal, but we are traveling tomorrow and therefore my wife will run out of her bp med during the trip.
I got on the phone with Welcome over in India and ordered 200 of each medication to keep in reserve.
I am inclined to just avoid using my health insurance in the future to avoid all the hassles. I will find a cash only primary care physician, and buy all my meds from India. I will keep the blue cross for emergencies.
I’ve been ordering nearly everything I take online for the last 8-9 years as well as many of my labs. I still see my doctor and get his diagnosis and prescription but if it’s not an acute need that I have to have filled right away I order it and wait the typical 10-14 days. I mainly started doing that because our insurance became a catastrophic plan so it is usually cheaper than going through insurance.
Package delivery will be facilitated personally by DEA.
Example
If you attempt to enter with / purchase coco tea{mata de cocoa as it is called in SA, which is legal in most if not all SA countries, a commercially sold product) this is a Schedule II narcotic in the US. People get arrested any time they are found such as carring in luggage or shipped.
Thats what I thought! I was just using that as an example. But I still don’t understand the mechanics of how these companies in India area allowed to ship so many different prescriptions here without oversight.
The offshore pharmacies seem well informed on what can be legally shipped to various countries. I have friends in other countries (I’m in the US) who are unable to import certain medications that I am able to get without issue. The amount matters too. Anything over a personal 3 month supply is getting into a gray area and some places will not process the order if it’s more than that amount. There were a couple times in the past that I tried to order a 6 month supply for convenience and it was rejected.
I only use India for medications that are harder to get in the US, due to a lack of support for longevity-oriented consumers focused on disease prevention.
I also have a catastropic plan ($20/yr part “D” plan); other than rapa which I source from India, I use GoodRx for the few prescription things I take … statin, bp med, etc. Very reasonable costs for generic stuff.
I just used GoodRx for my estradiol patches for the first time this week and got a great price on par with what I’ve been paying through inHouseChemist.
I can see that there is a risk ordering prescription medication from India. I ordered three different meds, but my Paypal invoice for the transaction is for 3 Tee shirts. Kinda shady, but I have found that the Rapamycin from this vendor is legit.
Perhaps I should not have posted this thread when I was annoyed. Since we were leaving for a trip, I began the day by doing my taxes. Then I attacked the medical bills sorting the ones that were already paid from the ones that I had paid more than once, or the bills that were coded incorrectly. Then I sorted these bills by whether I needed to contact the provider, or the insurance company.
So I was in a cheerful mood when I went to the pharmacy and came away empty handed. Btw. My wife’s cardiologist came through and I picked up a thirty day supply of Metropolol today. They never allow more than thirty days worth out of fear that my wife will sell her pills on the street corner or something.
Modern medicine is full of miracle and wonder, and I do try to respect the miracle workers, but the red tape is nuts sometimes. Katherine Eban’s book mentions that much of the medication sold in the US comes from India anyway, but the supply chain for branded drugs is often more direct and transparent. I do wish there was a cash option for almost all medical care. I will try to remember to be thankful for the options that I have.
For a nation that seeks to claim the mantle of “pharmacy to the world,” India is scandalously short on regulatory oversight. In the last six months alone, its generic cough syrups have killed dozens of children, its eye drops have caused blindness and its chemotherapy drugs have been contaminated.
The children who died — mostly under the age of five years — were given Indian-made over-the-counter products contaminated with industrial solvents and antifreeze agents that are fatal in even small amounts. The eye drops that contained extensively drug-resistant bacteria? So far 68 patients across 16 U.S. states have been affected. Three people died, several had to have their eyeballs removed, some went blind, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on March 21. The Indian company, Global Pharma Healthcare, issued a voluntary nationwide recall for the drops.
India is the largest provider of generic medicines, producing 20% of the world’s supply, according to the government’s Economic Survey. Its $50 billion drug-manufacturing industry exports medicines to over 200 nations and makes 60% of all vaccines. It boasts “the highest number” of U.S. Food and Drug Administration compliant plants outside America, and indeed, some of its generic pharmaceutical companies produce high-quality medicines.
That may well provide consumers with a level of comfort, but history suggests it is unwise to trust that feeling.
Valisure’s CEO, David Light, was invited to speak at the Stanford Medicine Grand Rounds and present the topic, “Drug Quality & Safety Issues in the US and Strategies to Address Them.” During his presentation, David had the opportunity to share with top physicians background and extensive data on drug quality issues from Valisure’s numerous petitions and a growing number of studies and reports. Real-world solutions where independent testing, quality scoring, and certification are already being used were also discussed, along with debunking concerns over cost or access if more is done to address quality.
